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Rutgers University Condemned for Canceling Palestinian Rights Advocate's Graduation Speech
"The message Rutgers is sending to this class and everyone around the country is alarming," said Rami Elghandour. "Don't dare stand for anything. Don't dare speak up."
May 07, 2026
Faculty members at Rutgers University in New Jersey on Thursday were among those condemning the school's decision to rescind an invitation to Rami Elghandour, a biotech executive and producer of the Gaza-focused film The Voice of Hind Rajab, who had been invited to speak at the School of Engineering commencement next week.
Elghandour said the engineering school's dean, Alberto Cuitiño, had informed him that he was no longer scheduled to give the commencement address after a "few" students told the administration they would not attend the graduation in protest of Elghandour's online advocacy for Palestinian rights.
"Commencement season is here, and with it the usual cycle of silencing voices that stand up for human rights," said Waheed U. Bajwa, a professor at Rutgers in New Brunswick. "This one hits close to home... I publicly call on Rutgers to reverse this!"
Elghandour, a graduate of the engineering school, released a statement saying that the school had "decided that the feelings of a handful of students who said that my social media posts 'opposed their beliefs' were more important than the experience of the entire graduating class, the reputation of the school, the dignity and belonging of Arab and Muslim students, and the First Amendment."
Speaking to the New Jersey Globe, a spokesperson for the university cited a specific post that Elghandour wrote in April on the social media platform X, saying that Israel has "committed genocide" and is "running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners."
"Weapons embargo is the absolute minimum," said Elghandour. "Sanctions and diplomatic isolation are beyond justified."
Leading human rights organizations and Holocaust scholars are among those who have called Israel's assault on Gaza, which began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack and has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, a genocide.
Calls for the US to suspend military aid to Israel in light of the war are hardly a fringe view in the US; a Quinnipiac University poll released last August found that 60% of voters across all parties supported a suspension of aid.
Middle East Eye reported in December on Palestinian detainees' allegations that Israeli guards had used dogs to sexually assault them. Rights organizations including the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have also collected testimonies alleging such abuse.
Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin told the Globe that some students had accused Elghandour of making an "inflammatory claim" when they said they would not attend the graduation if he spoke.
"Rutgers chose me in part because of my humanitarian work,” said Elghandour in his statement. “They put my role as an executive producer for the Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab front and center. They led with my social justice advocacy. Until it was inconvenient. That’s the difference between virtue signaling and principles. One withstands challenge. The other wilts in the slightest breeze.”
"The message Rutgers is sending to this class and everyone around the country is alarming," he added. "Don't dare stand for anything. Don't dare speak up."
He said he plans to record the speech he had been scheduled to give and post it online so students can still hear it.
Hank Kalet, a journalism professor at the school who serves as vice president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, told the Globe that the university's actions met "the definition of viewpoint censorship.”
“We have somebody who is offering, in a public way on X, some opinions about genocide in Gaza and being retaliated against because of the opinions that he has,” said Kalet, who is Jewish. He told the outlet that he did not believe Elghandour to be antisemitic.
Naureen Akhter, public affairs director for CAIR-New Jersey, noted that Rutgers had recently hosted Israel Defense Forces soldiers on its campus as part of a national tour called "Triggered: The Ceaseless Tour."
“It is unconscionable that Rutgers rolls out the red carpet to soldiers engaged in genocide yet finds expression of pro-Palestine solidarity from one of their distinguished alumni so objectionable, they refuse to have him address graduates," said Akhter. “We call on Rutgers School of Engineering to reinstate Rami Elghandour as commencement speaker and approach issues of student safety and freedom of expression with more care.”
The Rutgers student body is no stranger to advocacy for Palestinian rights. As on other college campuses across the US, students held a sustained protest in the spring of 2024, demanding the school divest from companies that do business with Israel, terminate its relationship with Tel Aviv University, and take other steps to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians.
Rutgers-Newark also defended its decision to host pro-Palestinian comedian Ramy Youssef at its 2025 commencement after a state lawmaker claimed his involvement would alienate Jewish students at the university.
The decision to cancel Elghandour's speech came days after the University of Michigan publicly apologized for a graduation speech by Professor Derek Peterson, who had applauded students who spoke out for Palestinian rights in campus protests, saying they exemplified the school's long history of social activism.
“I think [Palestine] is the moral issue of our time, and I believe it’s been used to undermine democratic institutions in the US,” Elghandour told The Guardian on Wednesday.
Bajwa said on social media that "everyone says they'd have stood against slavery, the Holocaust, segregation, and more."
"Easy to be righteous about the past," he said. "But what about now? What moral tests are you failing in your own time? That's the real test of courage."
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Faculty-Led Movement Opposing Trump Attack on Universities Builds Steam
Weeks after the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution to form a "mutual defense compact" with other Big Ten schools, at least four other schools have pushed forward their own proposals.
Apr 18, 2025
Weeks after the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution to form a "mutual defense compact"—aiming to band together with other universities to protect from the Trump administration's attacks on academic freedom and free speech—university communities' push for their schools to stand up to the White House is gaining momentum.
Labor unions, Palestinian rights groups, and other advocacy groups on Thursday held rallies and events to mark the Day of Action for Higher Education, with students and faculty at more than 150 schools demonstrating against President Donald Trump's funding cuts; attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; targeting of academic freedom; and deportation operations in which a number of student organizers have been rounded up in recent weeks.
"[ Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is abducting students," said the Debt Collective, a sponsor of the day of action. "The Trump administration is suppressing free speech. Tuition is rising and workers and staff aren't paid living wages. We need higher education to be a liberation machine, not a deportation and debt-making machine."
The signs displayed at one rally in Pittsburgh reflected the wide array of attacks Trump has launched against higher education—from billions dollars of funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health, impacting biomedical and scientific research at universities across the U.S. to the ICE arrests of international students who have spoken out against Israel's U.S.-funded assault on Gaza.
Like the mutual defense compact proposal that's now gained traction at several schools, the day of action is partially a response to Trump's demand that universities collaborate with the administration to punish students who took part in nationwide Palestinian solidarity protests last year.
Columbia University has drawn ire for reportedly giving the names of students, including organizer Mahmoud Khalil, to the Trump administration before he was detained by ICE; refusing to provide protection to Khalil and his fellow organizer, Mohsen Mahdawi, who was also arrested this week; and revoking degrees from some pro-Palestinian protesters.
In contrast, faculty senates at Big Ten schools including the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Indiana University at Bloomington, Michigan State University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have joined Rutgers in passing resolutions calling for the creation of mutual defense compacts to protect against the "legal, financial, and political incursion" of the Trump administration.
On Thursday, members of the faculty senate at the University of Michigan, also part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, advocated for passage of a resolution to defend "academic freedom, institutional integrity, and the research enterprise"—and push back against administrators' closing of the school's DEI office at the behest of Trump's White House.
"The University of Michigan abandoned DEI in-part to avoid the wrath of Trump and most schools, not just ours, have been cowed into this kind of preemptive capitulation. Most schools, not just ours, have gone silent, just when we need them to speak up," sociology and law professor Sandra Levitsky told Michigan Advance on Thursday.
At Indiana University, Jim Sherman, a professor emeritus in psychological and brain sciences, said that while faculty members and students are calling on their institutions to form a coalition against Trump, many administrators at public universities seem to want to draw as little national attention to their schools as possible.
"I think a lot of universities are thinking, basically, 'Boy, I hope they don't come after us.' You know, 'Let them come after Columbia or Harvard or Stanford... Let them go after the big dogs,'" Sherman told Common Dreams. "Maybe if we stay quiet and don't do very much, they'll just ignore us."
But that approach will only worsen the sense of "anxiety, angst, uncertainty, [and] instability" that's spreading across college campuses today, said Sherman.
"When I was an active faculty member, the years and the job were just full of joy," he said. "My collaboration with colleagues across the U.S. and across the world were just incredible. I couldn't have wanted a happier and more fulfilling life."
"Rather than doing your teaching and research," he added, "I think the major goal right now for many of us is protection."
Sherman expressed hope that the growing support for mutual defense compacts will soon leave a critical mass of schools with no choice but to join—and ultimately place pressure on university presidents, who thus far have declined to back the movement.
"If you're in the Big Ten and suddenly five or six universities join, you don't want to be the one who's left out or not [doing] anything," said Sherman.
Outside the Big Ten, Harvard University garnered applause this week when it announced—unlike its Ivy League peer Columbia—that it will not comply with Trump's demands to expel students who took part in pro-Palestinian protest, end its recognition of Palestinian solidarity groups, or audit its programs for "viewpoint diversity." The elite university now faces a threat from Trump to have its tax-exempt status revoked.
The mutual defense compacts that have passed so far call for participating universities to "commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund," which could potentially be used in cases like that of Indiana cybersecurity professor Xiaofeng Wang, a Chinese national whose home was raided last month by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI and who was fired by the university, or international students targeted by ICE.
"As long as different universities put their resources together, whether it's sharing information about legal issues, whether it's talking about cases that have been resolved one way or another, whether it's making funds available for the protection of faculty," Sherman said. "I think the biggest goal should simply be unification and coordination and cooperation among as many universities who want to join in as possible."
University presidents are also facing pressure from labor unions to support a mutual defense compact, with a dozen graduate students' unions affiliated with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America releasing a statement Wednesday.
The unions—representing tens of thousands of students at University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, North Carolina State University, and others—urged schools to establish an International Worker Support Fund and to ensure they won't "comply with ICE or other federal agencies initiating unconstitutional requests, such as sharing names and documentation statuses of students and workers or allowing ICE or other federal agents to enter campuses and university buildings."
Paul Boxer, a psychology professor at Rutgers who co-authored the original resolution at the school, emphasized that while university presidents have not yet expressed support for the mutual defense compact, support for defending First Amendment rights, academic freedom, and the diversity that thrives on many college campuses is strong among those who make up university communities.
"We do believe it's extremely important," Boxer told Common Dreams, "that faculty, staff, students, alumni, anyone connected to higher education at all, whether it's public or private, understands that universities—certainly at the level of the individuals who are providing higher education services, who are doing that kind of work, who are invested in the present and future of higher education—we are all committed to this cause."
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Rutgers Senate Proposes Big Ten 'Mutual Defense Compact' to Block Trump's Campus Attacks
Universities "should be embodying the values of democracy," said one supporter. "And it really becomes clear in times like this how important that is."
Mar 31, 2025
A resolution passed by the Rutgers University Senate in response to the Trump administration's crackdown on First Amendment rights is "exactly the kind of model" needed in higher education, said one professor on Sunday as word spread of the document—which was approved amid outcry over other universities' capitulation to the White House's attacks.
"The public is crying out for leadership from somewhere," said Michael Yarbrough, a professor of law and society at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "Higher ed can provide that and catalyze something bigger. And in the process, we can remind everyone of our true value, something we desperately need to do."
The step toward leadership came in the form of a resolution to form a "mutual defense compact" with other schools that, along with Rutgers, make up the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Under the compact, the schools would "commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund" that would provide "immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement."
The Rutgers Senate, which includes faculty, students, staff, and alumni, called on the New Jersey institution's president to "take a leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership to initiate the implementation of this compact."
The resolution, passed on March 28, was agreed to days after the Rutgers faculty union filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration to block its efforts to abduct, detain, and deport international students for expressing support for Palestinian rights, criticism of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and the West Bank, and taking part in pro-Palestinian campus protests over the past year.
Under Trump's executive orders to stop what it classifies as "antisemitism" and to deport foreign nationals who "espouse hateful ideology," immigration agents in recent weeks have detained people including Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who led negotiations last year calling on the school to divest from companies that profit from Israel's policies; Tufts University Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-wrote an op-ed calling for her school's divestment; and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri, who was detained because "the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel," according to his lawyers.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem. This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."
"The First Amendment means the government can't arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression—it's as simple as that," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which is representing the Rutgers union and other faculty organizations in the lawsuit. "This practice is one we'd ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy."
Under the Rutgers resolution, members of the senate called on participating institutions to "make available, at the request of the
institution under direct political infringement, the services of their legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response."
The response could include legal representation, countersuit actions, amicus briefs, legislative advocacy, and "coalition-building," according to the resolution.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem," said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a professor at University of Minnesota—another member of the Big Ten alliance. "This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."
A Rutgers Senate member who asked to remain anonymous told Common Dreams on Tuesday that members of the university community have expressed "relief" and "joy" at the news that the body is taking a leadership role in fighting the Trump administration's attacks on higher education.
"People are just feeling like there's something they can hang their hats on that's hopeful," said the member, who was involved in pushing the resolution forward. "Individuals who are concerned about higher education, who are involved in it or connected to it—we're looking to something like this from a big university who can step out and say, 'Let's get something going here to blockade against these attacks.'"
Trump's assault on First Amendment rights are understood to be "existential" by many on university campuses like Rutgers, said the member.
"Proud to be a Rutgers faculty member today," said Michal Raucher, a professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University—New Brunswick, regarding the passage of the resolution.
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, chair of the joint program in English and education at University of Michigan—another member of the Big Ten alliance—expressed support for the Rutgers Senate's leadership.
"I greatly admired our Rutgers colleagues' actions of solidarity during the recent waves of campus strikes," said Thomas. "My admiration has increased tenfold."
Last May, about 100 Rutgers faculty members prepared to form a protective circle around students' Palestinian solidarity encampment at the school's New Brunswick, New Jersey campus as a deadline set by administrators approached and officials threatened the students with arrest.
"We are an extremely diverse community," said the Rutgers Senate member. "And I think that we prize that about our community and about our state, because we know that we are elevated by it from the standpoint of having so many different perspectives, weighing on different kinds of issues."
"As the largest public university in the state, as the major land grant university, we take our commitment to the people of New Jersey and to the enterprise of public higher education very seriously," they added. "And we see these kinds of attacks for what they are."
In contrast to the resolution, Columbia administrators have faced harsh rebukes from First Amendment rights advocates for agreeing to the Trump administration's demands when the White House said it was canceling $400 million in government grants and contracts over the school's alleged "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
In response, Columbia—which allowed New York City police to drag students out of a school building and arrest more than 100 people last year during the pro-Palestinian protests—suspended, expelled, and revoked the degrees of some students who had participated in the demonstrations and increased law enforcement presence on campus, among other steps.
The Rutgers Senate member said the body's chair is planning to meet with the university president, Jonathan Holloway, who is set to step down in June, to ask him to sign on to the resolution.
"I think he can make the choice to essentially become legendary in the field and take a strong stand like this and organize his colleagues," said the senate member.
Yarbrough said that Trump's crackdown on protesters, and the capitulation of some institutions, illustrates how education "is really crucial to democracy and to a healthy democracy."
"We should be embodying the values of democracy," said Yarbrough. "And it really becomes clear in times like this how important that is."
While some university administrators are "caving to the Trump administration," he said, "what I think of as the real university of faculty, staff, and students are actually pushing back. And I think that mirrors what we're seeing in the United States more broadly, where most elected leaders and officials are not pushing back the way we would like. But all kinds of people on the ground really are."
"That's what it takes to push back [against] these kinds of authorities and threats," said Yarbrough. "It comes back to the people."
Editor's note: This piece has been updated with additional comments from Michael Yarbrough and a Rutgers Senate member.
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